Pep Guardiola described his surprising tactical approach with Manchester City after leaving Emirates Stadium following Gabriel Martinelli’s equalizer in the 93rd minute.
Pep Guardiola joked that it was made to “suffer” after parking the bus for the first time in a decade. Manchester City left the Emirates in a fierce battle after Gabriel Martinelli’s injury time equalizer rescued Arsenal’s points.
However, the city is the lowest since Guardiola was in charge of Etihad in 2016, in stark contrast to its reputation for playing beautiful football. Guardiola, the city’s boss, laughed.
“Once in 10 years isn’t bad, yeah, I have to prove myself again with another strategy. So now I have a transition team. I said I wouldn’t give an af*** about the outcome. I wanted to see the training session and the spirit of enjoying us.
“I’ve recovered this week. We have to continue, and from there we learn how to win the process, the tactics, the game and feel more comfortable to be proud of ourselves.”
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Guardiola joked that he wanted to bring the ball closer to Arsenal Keeper David Raya than his own Gianluigi Donnaruma. “I’ve suffered! I want to bring the ball closer to Raya, not Gigi,” he said.
“We liked to play in a very close, resilient way, and in 10 years we will play against a lot of teams that are deep, deep and deep defending.
Arsenal left the leaders Liverpool and Mikel Arteta, thanks to his replacement, left prison, but he refused to accept that he made the original choice wrong, dismissing the notion that Declan Rice, Martin Zubimendi and Mikel Merino were too negative.
Gunners boss Arteta said: “I’ll leave it to you, but for me it’s a lot of offensive players on that team. Yes, I think it’s very clear what we want to do.
Martinelli was a great hero against Athletic Bilbao mid-week as he scored behind the city. Arteta added:
“Regardless of the outcome, I say the same thing. I’m very proud of the teams and players who played this game against this guy’s city.”
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